Jackie Kay ‘Much of my poetry has been inspired or provoked by the blues’

• Published date: 18 March 2023

The prize is unique because it is writers who nominate the books

You won the Guardian Fiction Prize for Trumpet, among other awards. Are there cons as well as pros to prize culture?

I guess the cons for certain writers are all psychological. Like too much pressure on a footballer when taking a penalty! It can make writers suddenly feel undeserving, and self-sabotage their next offering.

Trumpet was inspired by US jazz musician Billy Tipton, and you've also written a biography of blues singer Bessie Smith. What does music mean to you?

I want to quote that John Miles song - 'music was my first love and it will be my last' - from the '70s.

I've always felt happiest listening to people sing live, whether it was in my living room in Glasgow or Manchester, or at Ronnie Scott's, or whether it was Blue Note in Greenwich Village or Matt and Phred's in Manchester.

Much of my poetry has been inspired or provoked by the blues, by the 12-bar beat, and many of my poems have been made into songs.

You were Makar or Scottish poet laureate, from 2016 to 2021. What did it involve and what did it mean to you?

It was the biggest honour of my life. I loved it. I read poems for a huge amount of big public events - to open a new session of Scottish Parliament (Threshold in 2016), to open the Queensferry Bridge, to launch the Solheim Championship in women's golf. I launched "The Makar's Malt" - which had a poem on the bottle - and I read up and down and across the country, particularly visiting people on the islands and peninsulas. I got to know my country in a whole new way.

As a teenager you worked as a cleaner for David Cornwell (John le Carré), which you likened to being a spy. Tell me more.

People don't realise how much cleaners learn about your life, your habits, your peccadilloes. They think you're invisible. And invisibility can be the best disguise. You're always going to be underestimated; people, even sympathetic liberal-minded people, are not going to think that you're smart. And you get the chance to listen in and observe the mores and manners of people who have more money than you.

What projects are you working on?

I'm working on a new collection of poems whose working title is A Life in Protest. I'm also adapting my memoir Red Dust Road into a screenplay.

Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?

Yes, I found the wee bothy/croft where Nan Shepherd wrote The Living Mountain. I hiked up the steep hills from Braemar, and there was a green, rough wee place in a state...